Proton Stingray motorcycle using carburetted 1.3L

This is the Proton Stingray, an experiment by the Proton Prototype Centre that took 2 months. Proton says they built the Proton Stingray to enhance skills and upgrade technical knowledge, but I fail to see what car-related skills could be gained from building a motorcycle from ancient parts such as the carburetted 12 valve 1.5 litre engine they used.

The front suspension bits are telescopic shocks from the Kawasaki Vulcan 800 together with the front brakes as well, while the rear uses S45C mild steel and a ventilated disc brake from a Proton GEN2.

Look after the jump for a hi-res gallery of the Stingray.PHOTO GALLERY: Proton Stingray motorcycleClick thumbnails to view high resolution photo

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.

Why on earth did they experiment with building this Proton Stingray – bike ? If they want to build bikes to enhance technical know how …..WHY DID PROTON SELL CAGIVA FOR Euro 1 dollar and now it is being bought at hundreds of millions ………… on the pretext of no synergy in motorcyle and cars !!!!!

come on guys, it looks cool,
about quality, still cannot get over it? then u must be outdated i supposed.
this is to prove that, Proton is capable.. from having a huge loss, they build it back with the introduction of persona and all. see the selection and service that they provide.. we can say that proton is now standing at the same level as other automakers even though Proton is just too young to compare with others but still we can put side by side with kia, toyota and honda. 2007 is the year for proton..or should i say the raising Proton.

I’m very proud with proton, coz the foreigners did not look down on proton but see proton as one of its rival.

“Grass is always green on the other side” that is why most people are quite narrow minded.

Imagine all roti bike and ice cream bike are using stringray!!! Sure gonna put Orange County Chopper to shame………hahahahaha

On a serious note, proton should get their priority RIGHT – that is making better cars.
Please don’t waste time and money making motobike using car engine, and call it for the sake of “prototyping”. Why not prototyping a pencil sharpener with proton engine too??

No wonder Proton sucks…wasting time and malaysian people’s $$ design tis kinda rubbish. Look the engine is not even anything new, it is d mitsu 4g13. Please focus on improving quality and new modern technology.

It is true what Proton said that they want to enchance skill and upgrade technical knowledge by ‘built’ a bike like this, because their skill level now not even up to built a carburetted engine by themself, so this 1500cc carburetted bike really helps.
That why Paul you fail to see what they gained cause your expectation are different.

Rim and disc brakes from Gen 2? What on earth Proton thinking. Just to put something up so they could show the world they are capable to produce bike even though they are car makers?
Hell u are just putting in a car’s parts inside an empty shells!
look at that air filter and battery! really awful

They should stop wasting their time and think of building better Proton CARS and give us Malaysians something to be proud of. A BIKE ??? I think they seriously have time to waste now. Come on Proton! We want good cars from you and not some wanna-be chopper. Prove to us Proton really BOLEH !!!

Forgive me… Going by the name PROTON, Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional, the company was created for building automobiles! Then why in heaven are they dabbling in bikes for?

Do these people really know what their customers want? Dont we want cars, good cars, better quality cars, cars that can be sold all over the world, so we can properly compete with the other auto companies? Do they have a corporate vision? A customer charter? Maybe some of you who went to their ‘open house’ recently can comment… Is this part of their so-called masterplan? If it was up to me, this thing done belong in that plan…

This should stay as an experiment. If they really want to build bike then they should keep the MV Augusta. The bike clearly lost its appeal especially when you can see the battery protruding on the left side. More like a frankenbike to me.

To Paul – this chopper was first announced to the public about ONE YEAR ago. I understand that this chopper (and many other protoypes on show during the Technology week) is built by the PROTOTYPE engineers to find out possibilities and ideas to utilise Proton engines and components for alternative form of transportation other than cars.

It’s got nothing to do with MV Agusta. And by the way, did anyone noticed that BMW and Suzuki also makes MOTORBIKES?

They better start doing something useful, and related to their core business, ie car. Or they could fiddle with alternative energy’s car like a solar powered one or hybrid. We have unlimited supply of sunshine!

Toyota has an annual event that promotes their engineers to build ‘wacky’ stuff the ‘violin playing’ robot …

The reason why Malaysian companies cannot make it BIG can be clearly seen by the posts here. By that I mean the negativity, short sightedness and the lack of knowledge from the Malaysian masses in giving out such comments.

I agree with car_craze.. Prototype shop is where all the ideas came alive, the first arena was built there before the designer (Engineering/CAE it is) take charge, its like kedai potong (with the rules, of course). They take the best technician, painter, mechanics to work there.. all P-cars (prototype, or the japanese called goushi/henkaku) body being built there before the tooling being approved and going for mass production. So its logic and make sense for them to built something like this. Furthermore, i dont really think they need to spend that much money, it’s not something like G2 soft top or anything else that require special tooling. Cuma, maybe bikes and Perusahaan Otomobil just dont jive but, hey, thay did built bicycle (and a good one even if the engineering team swears like hell coz no value add) haha ask the old mgmt

Proton engineering should invest and do more R&D into the quality of their parts..can the crap suppliers if they cannot deliver instead of the status quo of overcharging their customers for sub standard quality parts.

Haih….if they are so free please do something new and unique, don’t always be a copy cat…..cut and paste and claim it is new and high tech…..stop getting other car’s part from Renault for Proton’s Car recently…

And the giant company Toyota (Toyoda then) first started out with the spinning loom. Look where they are now. We still wallow in negative thinking when major Japanese car companies are having ‘idea olympics’. How sad.

http://www.pistonheads.com/doc.asp?c=102&i=3682.

Check the above site for Toyota’s ‘ideas olympics’ and see the loony ideas proposed from their employees, just to create POSSIBILITIES for future development.

Haih….if they are so free please do something new and unique, don’t always be a copy cat…..cut and paste and claim it is new and high tech…..stop getting other car’s part from Renault for Proton’s Car recently…
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Why is Proton wasting time on motorcycles, after all, they have sold Augusta…Proton management should get their priorities right….identify niches where the big boys have missed…for example, the Islamic car idea is really cool…and they can have a unique brand and identity..just selling to OIC countries is more then enough…please FOCUS Proton!!!

Agree with some…this bike is old news lah! But I have to agree with the rest…Roti Naan, Kahing, Jie, Abtm and Realeyes on matters they SHOULD get their priority RIGHT and STRAIGHT on building a better cars or researching and upgrading more on it’s technology side. If the team at Proton building this bike purely on having extra time on their hands…heck, I don’t have a problem with that if they could actually learn “something” out of it. Just PLEASE…and I HOPE they don’t actually WASTE a huge amount of money on this!! Yes, BMW does have and built a bike under their belt but their cars a far much better built than ours. So, Proton still have a long way to go with their cars…a very long way to get there. Peace!

sure, bmw and suxuki build bikes but they don’t build their bikes using car engines and spare parts!

sure, honda built ASIMO and toyota built a robot that can plays the violin and they are building it for fun but you don’t see the robots with car engine and spare parts!

if you were to build something, be it for the future or for fun, do it properly, do it in style.
make it presentable, and properly functional.
don’t just simply build something out of car engine and parts.

looking at the bike, is it for fun? maybe.
is it something for the future? not.
and remember, it was built by a bunch of engineers, from the proton prototype centre. heck, give me the proper tools and i think i can build this bike. you don’t need to be an engineer to build it. what’s more, engineers from a prototype centre.

don’t get me wrong, if proton decided to build bikes and sell them, they will have my full support, but do it properly.

What wrong with that? .. It’s not only a toy for their designers.. but for better understanding of technical and engineering. Example.. For less vibration engine study, best suspension setup, less engine noise etc etc…

Sometime.. we must look with a bright side of our brain.. not always with your black brain and black heart..

i guess maybe those thing happen because both automakers are connected to each other as we all know that proton also manufactured some parts for other cars too. ?? anyone with more information about this?? well without a proper prove, i cannot elaborate more, it’s up to us to look up or look down on proton.

Well, yes BMW and Honda made bikes. But they are a company with fantastic cashflow, with little if any support or protection from their govt. They can do what they like with their money, and god, they make fantastic bikes that sell.

In contrast, Proton can hardly survive in open environment, without protection or some kind of assistance from its govt. Its cashflow is not that fantastic, and so cannot afford any diversion from its core business, for that is a luxury afforded by those with money.

If you have a son who still depend on you for money, you expect him to spend that money wisely. Imagine the horror when you see him spend it on modding his bike, or buying sport rim on his perodua.

But I am ok if it is true that the engineers did this outside normal working hrs, with minimal expended by the mgmt on the parts.

I beg you to use your common sense before posting. First off, you are giving examples of:

1) Honda developing ASIMO
2) Yamaha started as a musical instrument company …
3) Toyota has an annual event that promotes their engineers to build ‘wacky’ stuff the ‘violin playing’ robot.

You are comparing these R&D technology to Proton assembling 1.3 cab engine to a motorbike? lol dude. It is not economically viable to put car engine to a motorbike, plus it was a cab engine. Old technology that does not contribute to fuel efficiency in any way. Unlike the examples you have given, they are future assets or presumably non-core assets to the company. ASIMO now is the most advanced humoid robot in the world. They are no “toys” to the company.

Toyota has annual event that promotes engineers to build violin robot? check your facts dude. Toyota is a multinational conglomerate and also the world largest car manufacturer. They have division for R&D in robotics and it is not relevant to automotive division. They have unlimited money to burn but we do not. They have sales distributions across asia pacific, north america and european market while we are hardly achieving that.

Obviously, you are lacked of knowledge and you failed your common sense too. A typically jaguh kampung mentality.

i’ve seen this bike in your previous post paul if im not mistaken??it uses extra+old components so no waste of R&D money or so called “wang rakyat” is involved (rather being scrapped for nothing).about wasting time building this stuff..it is a good training for new and young engineers to enhance their skills in building cars..heck!! if you can make a car engine to move a two wheeler, then you should have the idea on how to move a four wheeler..weight distribution, who says building this prototype has nothing to do with car automotive..anyway, its just a prototype..its not necessary to put it in production and in fact, in the post clearly mentioned that its for training purposes..no issue of MV augusta and stuff

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